Drift
by Aromene
Summary: Owen is less than pleased about standing knee-deep in snow in the middle of the Himalayas. He didn't sign on for this.


**Disclaimer::hysterical laughter:: Still **_**no.**_

**AN: This is the fic I've wanted to write since November, but doubly wanted to write it in canon, which meant waiting to see what the beginning of Season 2 was. Now that I have... Thanks to Grav for the beta and kinda the title too.

* * *

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"_He was just here," Gwen says and something very deep inside of her breaks. "Something's taken him; Jack's gone."_

_End of Days_

It is five minutes later when Ianto notices the hand is missing. It's been there for so long that no one even looks at it with disgust anymore. Yet another thing that Jack never talked about. But now it's not there, and that only confuses them all the more.

There's a slight fluctuation in the Rift, lasting about thirty seconds, but that's all Tosh can find. Nothing to account for it, either.

Gwen finally tells them to all go home, and it's only later, much later, when she realizes that that's the moment she took command. The moment she took Jack's job.

A week passes. Two. Three. Nothing. Oh, there are weevils and other things that fall through the Rift on something resembling a regular basis. But nothing excessively new. Nothing they can't deal with, and somehow they manage. They all know their jobs; are all good at them. They can do without Jack.

But it doesn't mean something isn't missing.

Ianto looks sullen and just a bit angry all the time, and Tosh has thrown herself even further into her work. Owen is quicker to anger and seems to get off on petty fights for power with Gwen, who's getting more and more stressed by the day.

And then, on Election Day, the phone rings. For a fleeting moment she thinks it might be Jack because no one ever calls them.

Ianto picks it up. His face goes blank for a moment and then he puts it on speaker phone.

"Hello Torchwood!" A voice Gwen knows. A voice they all know. They've all just come back from voting for him. Why is the probably soon-to-be-Prime Minister calling them? How the hell does he even know they exist?

"_Outside the government", _Jack had once said. They'd believed him.

"I hope you're all managing fabulously without your fearless leader. But I'm afraid he's rather busy doing a favour for me. You know how these things are; national security and all that. Very hush-hush. Your dear Captain apologies profusely for not being able to tell you he was leaving. But the thing is I think he may just be a bit in over his head. I think a visit from his team is just what he needs!"

They're all staring at each other with the same look of confusion on their faces.

"I've sent good old Captain Jack over to the Himalayas. It's a bit of a flight, I know, but you wouldn't mind making the trip to help him out, now would you? Thought not. Off you go, kids. Best hurry too."

The line cuts out.

"I'll call the airline." Ianto rushes off to Jack's office.

Gwen supposes that's the decision made. Even if he's lying they can't take the chance he's not. If Jack's in trouble, they have to help.

They're on a plane three hours later. Which means they don't hear about the Toclafane. They miss the beginning of the End of the World.

* * *

Owen is less than pleased about standing knee-deep in snow in the middle of the Himalayas. He didn't sign on for _this_. 

He's still not sure what exactly he _did_ sign off for. Just not this.

They've been here a week and so far no sign of Jack. Nothing, in fact, according to any and all readings that Tosh has taken with any and all instruments she brought with her. If Jack's here, and that's becoming in Owen's mind a very big _if, _then he's right well disappeared.

Which means they have no hope in hell, or snow, of finding him. And why's it have to be winter?

Gwen is dejected and Ianto is looking more depressed by the day. And even if Tosh is determined to not give up, Owen already has. It's ludicrous. And idiotic. And probably just a bit suicidal.

But there's no convincing the others that going home would be the intelligent thing to do, so he just continues to trudge through the snow. He didn't sign on for this, but he kind of made a silent promise to himself after the "messing with the Rift" incident that he was going to be a better follower. Even if that was the following of acting-Captain Gwen through knee-deep snow.

Didn't mean he had to be happy about it though. And Jack had damn well better be in really deep shit.

* * *

Tosh believes she's failed Jack and all the others. She's been up late each night trying something new to the equipment she's brought with her in the hope that it will lead to something, but there's been nothing. If Jack's here, she can't find any trace of him. 

She wants to admit it's hopeless and tell the others that she's sorry she couldn't do anything, but she just can't bare the look in Ianto's eyes or the determination on Gwen's face. But sooner or later they're going to have to give up.

But it's not her call to make.

* * *

Ianto tries not to worry that's he lost the Captain too. Lisa is still too clear in his mind and he can't deal with another loss again so soon. Not when they just got Jack back. Not when he, finally, thought there might just be something real between them. 

But the world is almost endless and they can't search the whole thing, and a part of his brain keeps telling him that whatever is wrong, Jack is more than able to take care of himself.

He has to believe that, because anything else just doesn't bare thinking of.

* * *

When they finally wander back into civilization a week later to try to get a flight back they find they can't. Tosh hacks into the news network and they stare in horror of what they've missed. The World is ending and they didn't even know. Were too busy on a fool's errand in the middle of nowhere. And now there's no way they can get back to Cardiff. 

It takes them a month to wend their way down off the mountains and into India. It's warmer, but that's about all it has going for it. They need to go west, but west is a place none of them want to be.

It takes them another two months to reach the Mediterranean. The travel has been relatively easy going, except when they were worried for their lives (every day) or their path was blocked (five times before they learned not to get caught). They are exhausted and have all but given up. Jack is probably dead, the World is probably ending, and they can't do a damn thing about it.

They don't get further then northern Greece. The rest of Europe is all but blocked off in an attempt to keep out the East, and there's no way they can get over the borders without risking (and probably loosing) at least one life.

They find a small village close to the coast and do their best to hide away and be forgotten. And the World goes on. They hear the news now everyday from the locals. Every day they lose a bit more hope. Jack has long since ceased to matter simply because they have all concluded they are going to die. Whether Jack is still alive or not is pointless. And they know he can't be. They know that Saxon sent them on a fool's mission and that's he's had Jack all along. They just don't understand why he didn't have them killed instead.

They've been there seven months when the story reaches them. Two young men arrive in the village after dark one evening. They're Ukrainian, and their English is only passable. But everyone is so eager for news of the outside World, the stuff that Harold Saxon doesn't allow to be broadcast on the Archangel Network, that they don't care.

They tell a story. A story they've heard from an old man who heard it from two young women who heard it from someone else. A story that's been passed around the world half a dozen times. No one knows where it started. No one cares. It's Ianto that goes. They try not to leave their house in more than pairs in case they're taken. But Ianto is liked by most of the villagers who think he's a nice young English gentleman and are more than happy to have stuttered conversations that are partly English, partly Greek and partly something else entirely.

It's late when he returns and Gwen has already allowed herself nearly an hour of panic that he's been captured.

"Well?" Owen demands as soon as Ianto walks through the door and Gwen has shut and bolted it closed.

Ianto smiles. It's the first time he's done so since Gwen announced Jack was missing. It looks like it takes considerable work to make his facial muscles pull into a position nearly forgotten.

And so he tells the story.

And by the end of it they're all smiling. Practically grinning from ear to ear. There's hope yet. Quite a bit of it.

* * *

Two months later, on the day, the hour, the minute the World has been waiting for, all four of them are screaming the same word with all they have; all the horror, all the hope, all the helplessness. And the World ends.

* * *

Owen is less than pleased about standing knee-deep in snow in the middle of the Himalayas. He didn't sign on for _this_. 

They've been here only three days and so far no sign of Jack. He just wants to go home. Whatever trouble Jack's managed to get himself into he really wants no part of it.

Tosh hasn't found any sign of anything, and even Gwen looks like she wants to admit defeat. It's probably the weather more than anything, because even Owen knows that three days does not constitute a worth-while search when it's a bloody area as big as the bloody Himalayas.

They're headed back to something resembling a main village in order to catch a bus out to the east tomorrow. Maybe they can get a news update tonight, for the first time since they left Cardiff. The world has gone on around them, but they've haven't heard about it.

And Gwen's been complaining she wants to know who won the election. Not like they can't guess anyways.

Its pitch black by the time they get in, but the only what-passes-for-a-guest-house here is still more than happy to welcome them. And there's a TV. Which Owen finds pretty damn impressive considering they are in the middle of absolutely bloody _nowhere_.

And none of it's in English, but at least it seems to be kind of international news. Because there's Harold Saxon, their –apparently – new Prime Minister, because why else would he be on the TV? And there are spheres hovering around his head. And there's the US President being killed and _what the hell_?

"What in God's name..." Gwen trails off. "What the hell have we _missed_?"

"Apparently a lot."

They catch a bus the nine hours back to the nearest airport the next day. They're back in Cardiff a day later.

Owen knows he wasn't the only one expecting Jack to be waiting for them when they returned to the Hub. He also knows he's by far the least disappointed Jack isn't. But then, that's just the relationship he has with his boss, isn't it?

Gwen goes home to her fiancé all dejected, and Owen doesn't even notice when Ianto disappears. He drives Tosh home and then goes and gets plastered at the nearest bar.

By the time he manages to drag himself into the Hub the next day everyone else is acting like nothing's changed. Like the Himalayas never happened, and the Prime Minister didn't just introduce the world to aliens before killing the President, and that Jack, apparently, has never existed.

And that evening when the Blow Fish lands on their proverbial doorstep, Owen has to admit that that's really all that matters and everything else is extraneous and that he's more than happy to go back to pretending everything is fine.

And everything kind of is until "Hey kids, did ya miss me?" ruins it all.


End file.
